Letter to President Noboa on “internal armed conflict” and human rights violations in Ecuador

Correction: the letter was edited to amend the publication dates of the Constitutional Court decisions.

Washington, DC, May 22, 2024

Daniel Noboa

President of Ecuador

Quito—ECUADOR

Re: “internal armed conflict” and human rights violations in Ecuador

Dear President Noboa:

I write on behalf of Human Rights Watch to share an assessment of your government’s response to heinous abuses by criminal groups since you announced an “internal armed conflict” in Ecuador over four months ago.

Human Rights Watch has been monitoring, with dismay, the increase in violence in Ecuador, which in recent years has become one of the countries with the highest homicide rates in the region.[1] We have repeatedly called on authorities to ensure effective and rights-respecting security policies that protect the Ecuadorian people, in particular, by strengthening the country’s fragile justice system.[2]

We were concerned that on January 9, 2024, your government announced that there is an “internal armed conflict” in the country, an assertion that appears to lack legal basis and could open the door to human rights violations. We have since requested information from government offices, interviewed victims and witnesses of abuses, verified photographs and videos posted online, and reviewed court documents, to analyze the effectiveness of your policies, in addition to documenting human rights violations committed since the announcement.[3]

This letter outlines our findings and recommendations since the announcement of an “internal armed conflict,” as well as our analysis of human rights violations related to the armed conflict.

An “Internal Armed Conflict” in Ecuador?

On January 9, 2024, you passed a decree announcing an “internal armed conflict” against 22 criminal groups operating in Ecuador, which your government labeled “terrorists.”[4] You ordered the Armed Forces to carry out “military operations, under international humanitarian law and respecting human rights to neutralize” these groups.[5]

We are very concerned at the uptick in violence in the country and the incidents that took place on January 8 and 9, including the takeover of the state-owned TV channel TC Television and the escape from prison of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias “Fito,” who leads the criminal group “Los Choneros.”[6]

However, the existence of an armed conflict—international or non-international— does not depend on the declaration or determination made by a government or its president, but on an objective analysis of the facts on the basis of criteria established under international law.[7] A non-international armed conflict consists of “protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups.”[8] It requires two elements: i) a level of organization of the armed groups and ii) a level of intensity of hostilities.[9]

The decision to describe fighting with criminal groups as a non-international armed conflict is not only a technical matter of international law—it has real-life consequences for Ecuadorians. Given that international humanitarian law, which is only applicable during armed conflicts, allows for broader use of force, including at times lethal, a decision to allow armed forces to apply rules of engagement under international humanitarian law, even when the criteria for such a decision have not been objectively met, opens the door to human rights violations.

We analyzed in detail your decree and the police reports it cites and requested information from multiple government offices to examine your government’s legal argument for considering the situation an armed conflict. Based on the foregoing, we have concluded that your government has failed to present sufficient evidence to consider the fighting with any of these 22 criminal groups a non-international armed conflict. Similarly, the Constitutional Court has ruled that your government has “not provided sufficient information to justify the existence of one or more non-international armed conflicts.”[10]

In fact, your own government has produced evidence contradicting your conclusion that the current fighting would amount to an armed conflict. For example, while the “organization” requirement for an armed conflict hinges, in part, on the existence of a command structure with the capacity to sustain military operations,[11] a police report you cited in your January 8 decree indicates that the criminal groups in the country are “flexible and unstable” and “lack a structured criminal enterprise.”[12]

Effectiveness of the Measures Adopted

Since January, Ecuador has allegedly witnessed a decrease in the number of homicides. As your government has noted, the number of “violent deaths” decreased 27 percent by April 2024.[13] However, the increased levels of extortions and kidnappings, [14] as well as the recent killings of three mayors and the director of a prison,[15] show that the situation continues to be dire.

Between January and April 19, the Attorney General’s Office reports receiving 18,000 reports of crimes. It says it obtained 217 convictions, all but one in cases of “flagrancy,” and started trials on 38 other cases, all for cases of “flagrancy.”[16]  Normally, cases involving people arrested in "flagrancy" are not strategic prosecutions aimed at dismantling organized crime groups, but rather involve lower-level perpetrators accused of less violent crimes.

Many people were apparently never taken before a prosecutor or judge—a practice that raises concerns about possible abuse, as well as failure to effectively investigate.

Ensuring effective and rights-respecting security policies in relation to the criminal groups operating in Ecuador requires strengthening the justice system. In particular, based on interviews with prosecutors, judges, and organized crime experts, we respectfully recommend that your government urgently:

• Take steps toward creating a well-trained and resourced investigation unit in the Attorney General’s Office, so that prosecutors do not have to rely on the police to conduct investigations.
• Increase the number and capacity of forensic investigators, prosecutors and judges investigating and prosecuting organized crime and corruption, including through specialized training on organized crime, corruption, and money laundering, along with training to ensure rights-respecting investigations.
• Increase the funding of the protection mechanism for prosecutors and judges and ensure a periodic review of their risk situation.
• Work with the Attorney General’s Office to develop a strategy to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of high-level corruption-related cases and money laundering in order to help dismantle organized crime groups, including their associates in positions of power.
• Adopt measures to strengthen the investigation and prosecution of corruption-related cases, including by passing rights-respecting legislation to seize assets of organized crime groups, following the popular vote on question 6 in the April 21, 2024 referendum.
• Reestablish the Ministry of Justice, which was closed in 2018, so that it can oversee the prison system and coordinate judicial efforts between the judiciary, the Attorney General’s Office, law enforcement agents and the prison system.

Human Rights Violations

Since January 9, Human Rights Watch has documented multiple instances of serious human rights violations committed by security forces.

As described in detail in the annex to this letter, these include one apparent extrajudicial killing, several arbitrary arrests, and many cases of ill-treatment in prison which may in some cases amount to torture. Our research indicates that the total number of human rights violations committed since you announced an “armed conflict” are likely much higher.[17]

A large number of people reported arrested appear never to have been taken before a prosecutor or judge. Although the police and military are required to inform prosecutors about the arrests they carry out, many people appear to have been detained for short periods of time outside of the legal process and subject to reprimands, beatings or other degrading treatments by soldiers and police.[18]

Additionally, the military, which has been in control of prisons since January, has held detainees incommunicado, at times hampering their right to consult with lawyers or to obtain medical assistance. As described below, soldiers appear to be responsible for multiple cases of mistreatment and some cases of torture in prison.

We are concerned that Ecuadorian authorities appear to have taken few to no steps to prevent human rights violations or to ensure that those responsible are held to account. On the contrary, on January 9, members of the National Assembly said they were willing to pass an amnesty or pardon “whenever necessary to guarantee the work” of the police and army.[19] Such legislation could violate Ecuador’s obligation under international human rights law to investigate, prosecute and punish human rights violations, and the Assembly’s proposal sends a worrying message that invites security forces to commit violations with impunity.

Instead of taking measures to prevent abusive arrests, the government has publicly backed the security forces and you have accused a judge who found human rights violations in prisons of being “unpatriotic.”[20]

To ensure accountability for abuses that have occurred and prevent new human rights violations, we respectfully urge you to:

• Review your decision to apply rules of engagement under international humanitarian law, in line with the Constitutional Court’s decision and international law.
• Limit the role of the Armed Forces to circumstances in which their use is strictly necessary. As the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has said, the involvement of armed forces in public security “should be “exceptional,” “subordinated and supplementary to the work of civil agencies,” “regulated, by legal mechanisms and protocols on the use of force” and “supervised, by competent, independent and technically capable civil authorities.”[21]
• Strengthen disciplinary mechanisms for prevention and accountability both at the National Police and Armed Forces, including by ensuring constant monitoring and assessment of complaints received by civilian authorities, civil society groups and others, and guarantee effective criminal investigations.
• Publicly condemn reported human rights violations by security forces, making it clear that such cases will not be tolerated and that security forces are required to fully collaborate with prosecutors on investigations into these abuses.
• End the military’s control over prisons and commit to a reform of the prison system that addresses long-standing issues such as overcrowding, delays in processing penitentiary benefits, limited access to basic services, lack of a real social rehabilitation programs, and the small number and poor training for prison guards, among others.
• End incommunicado detention and ensure that detainees can communicate and receive visits from their families and lawyers and are guaranteed access to health care and other basic services.
• Instruct the military and the National Service for Comprehensive Attention for Detained Adults and Teenage Offenders (Servicio Nacional de Atención Integral a Personas Adultas Privadas de la Libertad y a Adolescentes Infractores, SNAI) to ensure that detainees are taken to court whenever their appearance is required by a judge under Ecuadorian law.

We urge your government to give due consideration to these recommendations and take proactive measures to safeguard the rights of all Ecuadorians. We continue to follow, with concern, the high levels of violence in the country and reiterate our openness to meet to discuss our findings and recommendations, in a constructive manner.

Juanita Goebertus Estrada

Director

Americas

Human Rights Watch

Annex: Evidence of Human Rights Violations Obtained by Human Rights Watch

Since mid-January, Human Rights Watch has requested information from government offices, interviewed victims and witnesses of abuses, verified photographs and videos posted online, and reviewed court documents, to document reports of human rights violations committed since the announcement of an “armed conflict” in Ecuador.[22]

The following is a summary of the evidence we have obtained and the cases we have documented.

Apparent Extrajudicial Execution

On March 11, 2024, the Ecuadorian government said that 15 alleged “terrorists” had been killed in security operations since January 9.[23] As of April 19, the Attorney General’s Office had opened eight ongoing investigations into possible extrajudicial executions.[24] Human Rights Watch has received reports of two possible extrajudicial killings since January and documented one other case, finding evidence indicating that it amounted to an extrajudicial execution.

On February 2 at 5:37 p.m., the army posted on their official Facebook page that they had apprehended two terrorists “who had tried to attack a military checkpoint.” The army said soldiers “fired their weapons” when a car “attempted to evade control by ramming into military personnel.”[25] Carlos Javier Vega, 19, died, and his cousin, Eduardo Velasco, was injured in the incident. The post also included two photographs of Eduardo and Carlos blurred out lying on the ground and one photograph of their red Chevrolet with bullet holes in the windows.

Human Rights Watch interviewed witnesses and the relatives and lawyers of the victims, verified videos and photographs, and reviewed court records, identifying evidence that contradicts the army’s account.

According to Eduardo, on the day of the incident, he and Carlos were going to sell a dog near the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana in Guayaquil.[26] Around 11:30 a.m., they encountered three soldiers standing on the street, blocking traffic. Eduardo said he briefly left the vehicle to explain to the soldier that they were headed to the university, which was five minutes away, but the soldiers denied them access. [27]

Eduardo said he returned to the car and drove in reverse. He recalls he accidentally struck a police vehicle that was parked and, nervous, drove forward, brushing the boot of a soldier.[28] He said one soldier opened fire while the car was stopped, hitting Carlos and then another one hitting him.

Eduardo tried to take Carlos to the hospital but was forced to stop the vehicle due to his shoulder injury. He said he shouted for help, but the soldiers who arrived at the scene insulted them and failed to provide assistance.[29]

The army seems to have been slow to provide aid to Carlos and Eduardo. Human Rights Watch verified 15 photographs and five videos, all recorded roughly 65 meters west of the supermarket “Mi Comisariato” in the Domingo Comín avenue in Guayaquil, showing the moments after Carlos Javier was shot. One video shared on Facebook on February 2, 2024, at 1:12 p.m. shows at least 10 members of the military and a police officer standing or kneeling near to Carlos and Eduardo’s red Chevrolet Aveo.[30] Three-armed soldiers are kneeling next to Carlos, who is lying face down on the street next to the right side of the vehicle. One of the armed force members carries a slung rifle close to Carlos’ chest.

Security forces eventually took Carlos to a hospital, where he died the following day due to internal bleeding from a lacerated lung and intestine. His body had four projectile entry wounds, according to the autopsy report, which Human Rights Watch reviewed.[31]

The army’s statement posted on social media describes Carlos and Eduardo as “terrorists,” a term the government uses to describe criminal groups. A case opened against Eduardo, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, shows no evidence of them belonging to a criminal group or even carrying guns that day.[32]

Eduardo was charged with “assault” and “resisting arrest” and put under house arrest. But on March 22 the prosecutor asked a judge to close the investigation against Eduardo.[33] The case was closed on April 10 and Eduardo was released.

A prosecutor in Guayaquil is investigating the army’s role in the incident, though the investigation remains in a preliminary stage.[34]

Arbitrary and Abusive Arrests

On March 11, the government reported that 13,073 people had been arrested since January 9.[35] (The government has not published on social media new data on people arrested since.)

Many people appear to have been detained for short periods of time outside of the legal process and subject to reprimands, beatings and other degrading treatments by soldiers and police.[36]

Moreover, Human Rights Watch received testimonies of people who say their relatives and neighbors were arrested simply because they were passing by an area where someone else was being detained or where security forces were conducting a raid.[37] According to human rights organizations and lawyers, these arrests have especially impacted young men in poor neighborhoods.[38]

For example, Human Rights Watch documented a case where 22 people were arrested on January 20, 2024, all accused of “terrorism.”[39]

That day, the military raided two homes and found cell phones, cash money, motorcycles and weapons.[40] According to a police report reviewed by Human Rights Watch, the operation stemmed from messages found on the cell phones of two individuals regarding the sale of a weapon. One of the detainees, whose name Human Rights Watch withholds for security, was arrested when they were watching the raid outside one of these homes, according to their lawyer.[41] The police report on, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, provides no evidence against them.[42]

For several days, the detainee’s relatives were unaware of their whereabouts. They received contradictory information from the authorities about the prison to which they had been taken, until they found that that they had been taken to Latacunga prison, over 180 kilometers away from their house in Echeandia.[43]

The case file, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, provides no evidence linking this person to “terrorism,” or any other crime. On March 4, a prosecutor changed the charges to “arms trafficking.”[44].

Human Rights Watch also verified videos showing beatings and other abusive treatment during arrests.[45] For example:

• Two incidents captured on video, and posted on social media on January 12, 2024, show two people being beaten by armed forces. A video shared on X, formerly Twitter, on January 12, 2024, shows at least seven soldiers surrounding a man on the ground on Avenue VP1 in El Guabo, El Oro province. The man is naked and appears to be trying to speak with the armed forces. One of the soldiers repeatedly kicks and beats the man. Another video circulated on Telegram on the same day filmed nearby on the corner of VP1 avenue and Luis Aguilar shows five soldiers near a person on the ground. One of the armed forces members hits the person with a large stick and kicks him in the back.
• A video circulated on X, on January 16, 2024, shows at least six members of the armed forces standing near two men lying face down on the sidewalk on Pío Jaramillo Alvarado Avenue in Guayaquil. One is in a white shirt, the other is in red. Both men’s shirts are over their heads. One officer is standing on the back of the man in the red shirt. The camera moves closer to the man in the white shirt and an armed forces member removes the shirt from his head, showing the man’s face which is bruised and cut as he is forced to say his name. A photograph from the same X post shows the man’s left eye bloodshot and swollen. The camera moves to the man in the red shirt and shows an armed forces member kicking him in the back before the man repeats his name twice for the camera.
• A video circulated on X, on February 3, 2024, recorded at night, shows a group of 11 armed forces members gathered next to a pickup with a flashing beacon on the dashboard while one of them severely beats two people with an unidentified type of baton on the corner of Abel Gilbert avenue and Manuel Díaz Grandos in Durán, Guayas province.

In addition, Human Rights Watch analyzed but could not verify the locations and dates of six videos that show three different instances where armed men wearing the same types of camouflage uniforms worn by Ecuadorean Armed Forces members in other videos verified by Human Rights Watch during this investigation, humiliated, whipped, beat, stepped on, and kicked detainees in the back of military vehicles. In one of the cases—documented in four videos shared on X, on January 15, 2024—armed forces members whipped two people, who are either fully nude or have their pants lowered, on their buttocks and on the top of their legs with batons. 

In two other cases—documented in two videos shared on X, on January 11 and January 30, 2024—armed men in camouflage step on and beat detainees who are tightly packed shoulder to shoulder in a truck bed. The video from January 11, shows at least five people lying down with their hands zipped tied behind their backs. Human Rights Watch was unable to verify the dates and locations these videos were filmed in due to a lack of visual information. The videos all appear to have been recorded by members of the armed forces present when the abuses took place.

Prison Conditions and Abuse

In recent years, Human Rights Watch has documented that lack of state control, as well as overcrowding and poor prison conditions, have contributed to organized crime groups' control of prisons and resulted in prison massacres. We have repeatedly called on authorities to take steps to re-establish control over prisons and improve guards’ training.[46]

We are concerned about your government’s decision on January 8 to transfer the control of prisons to the military, which has little to no training or experience in handling prisons.

We have documented that the military has held most detainees incommunicado, that is, unable to see their relatives, lawyers or officials of the Ombudsperson’s Office, since the beginning of the military takeover in January, in some cases, hampering their right to prepare their defense and consult with lawyers.[47] As the UN Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its states parties, has noted, “prolonged incommunicado detention” amounts to arbitrary detention and would generally be regarded as a violation of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment.[48]

Officials in the penitentiary system have also reported that, for weeks, the military restricted Health Ministry officials from or did not allow them to enter prisons, leaving detainees without access to doctors.[49]

The military’s takeover of prisons has also meant that the System of Integral Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), which continues to be in charge of transferring detainees, has been unable to present some people detained to their court hearing, even when required by a judge. Under Ecuadorian law, prison authorities’ failure to take a detainee to a court hearing makes the detention arbitrary and unlawful.[50]

Soldiers have also engaged in repeated cases of abuses against detainees. Human rights organizations, detainees and their families, as well as members of the Catholic church, which conducted assistance programs in prisons, have reported restrictions in the provision of food, medicines and other basic services, cases of beatings, use of teargas, electric shocks, sexual violence and deaths at the hands of soldiers.[51] Similarly, the Ombudsperson’s Office told Human Rights Watch that they have received “multiple alerts” regarding “alleged violations of rights” including possible cases of torture and ill-treatment.[52] As of April 19, the Attorney General’s Office had opened investigations into 46 possible cases of torture committed since January 9.[53]

Human Rights Watch attended virtual court hearings or reviewed court documents regarding three habeas corpus proceedings, in which several detainees reported that soldiers beat them, threw away their medicines, and in some cases tortured them.[54] For example, one detainee said:

Since they supposedly couldn’t hit me yesterday because I’m sick, they made me spread my legs and hit me in the testicles, they hit me with the cable on the back…They even threw gas at us, they stepped on my finger.[55]

Another said:

Every day they [hit] us with a stick, with an electrical cable, with whatever they have on hand. They treat us like we’re nothing, like we’re worthless, like we’re the lowest of society.[56]

Human Rights Watch also analyzed videos showing instances of abuse in prisons, including:

• A video shared on Telegram on January 15, 2024, showing the forceful movement of detainees at a prison in Archidona, Napo province. The video shows many members of the armed forces and police officers stationed in the southwest section of the facility. Police officers are shown dragging six prisoners, who have been stripped of their shirts, by the back of their necks, heads, and hair into the prison’s courtyard. Human Rights Watch could not identify when this video was recorded but was unable to find earlier versions posted online before early January 2024.
• A video that circulated on X on January 16, 2024, shows at least nine soldiers standing near a large group of shirtless detainees in the northwest courtyard of a prison in Turi, close to the city of Cuenca. The armed forces use teargas on the east side of the group and the wind carries the irritant over the rest of the prisoners. Prisoners react in pain and crawl from the gas toward the courtyard's west side. One of the soldiers kicks and beats prisoners with a stick. Human Rights Watch could not identify when this video was recorded but was unable to find earlier versions posted online before early January 2024.